Where I Left My Soul

by Jérôme Ferrari

  During all these years he has never really thought about any of that again; the wars he has fought in did not leave him time to do so and the ten months spent in Buchenwald extend behind him like a vast grey steppe that cuts his life in two and separates it for ever from the lost continent of his youth, but he has not forgotten it. June 1944 silently left its mark in his flesh, inscribing there the imprint of an unforgettable lesson, one that has enabled him to explain to his N.C.O.s: “Remember this, gentlemen, pain and fear are not the only keys for opening the human soul. They are sometimes ineffective. Don’t forget that there are others. Homesickness. Pride. Sadness. Shame. Love. Take note of the person in front of you. Don’t be pointlessly stubborn. Find the key. There’s always a key –” and he has now arrived at the absurd and intolerable conviction that he was only arrested at the age of nineteen so as to learn how to fulfil a mission that would be entrusted to him in Algeria thirteen years later. But this he cannot say to Tahar.

  “You were interrogated yourself in 1944,” Tahar repeats. “Yes, now I understand.”

  His attentive and sincerely distressed face exasperates Capitaine Degorce. “It’s your methods!” he says drily. “It’s your methods that force us to …” He stubs out his cigarette on the ground and tosses the end into a corner of the cell. “You leave us no choice!” he says and once more restrains himself from adding at the last moment, “What do you expect us to do?”

  “That’s strange,” Tahar murmurs meditatively.

  “What’s strange?”

  “Yes, it’s strange,” Tahar continues. “You see, I was sure it was we who had no choice about our methods.”

  Capitaine Degorce looks at him for a long time.

  (Logic can be turned inside out, like a glove. Lies. Truth.)

  He has regained his composure. He no longer wants to talk about the war. They have taken Tahar’s shoes away and he is wearing darned socks. Capitaine Degorce is bizarrely troubled by this.

  “I haven’t asked you: would you like tea or coffee? Would you like a wash? I must warn you, the coffee’s foul …”

  A soldier comes into the cell: “You must come, mon capitaine, it’s the colonel on the phone.” Degorce stands up.

  “I’ll come back,” he says to Tahar.

  He turns to the soldier: “You will remain with …” He does not know how to refer to Tahar. He does not want to say “the prisoner”, nor to use his nom de guerre or refer to him as “Monsieur”. “What is your rank in the A.L.N.?” he asks Tahar.

  “I’m a colonel in the A.L.N.”

  “You will remain with Colonel Hadj Nacer,” he resumes. “Make sure he has everything he needs. And give him back his shoes, if he wishes.”

  *

  “You’ve landed us in deep shit, Degorce, do you know that? Are you aware of that? I hope you had a vile night, a really vile night, like me. What the hell are we going to do with your Hadj Nacer? I swear I’d have liked it better if he’d put up a bit of a fight when he was arrested, the bloody bastard, that would have suited us very well, I’m telling you …”

  “I don’t understand, sir. Yesterday you were very pleased.”

  “Well, there you are, that’s life, my friend. First people are pleased and then they’re not … That’s the way it is … You put on your thinking cap … you see things in a different light … Aspects you hadn’t considered … complications … Good God, man, it’s not hard to understand! Do you never think things over yourself?”

  (The cretin has had a bollocking.)

  “On occasion, sir.”

  “How is he, Hadj Nacer? Depressed?”

  “You saw him yesterday, sir. No, he’s not depressed. Certainly not.”

  “And what about security? There’s no risk of him escaping? Or trying?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Are you sure? Absolutely sure?”

  “Yes, sir. Absolutely.”

  “Good … Good … Very good …”

  “When do you want me to hand him over for trial, sir? Once that’s done, it’s no longer our problem.”

  “I don’t need your opinion, Degorce. I’ll ring you later today to give you your instructions.”

  *

  The morning post. Jeanne-Marie. His parents. Marcel. Capitaine Degorce fingers the envelopes and again that vision of Claudie appears, so clear this time: she lies there on a bed with heavy white sheets, her nostrils pinched in her pallid little face, her eyes ringed with blue shadows and a rosary wrapped round her stiff fingers. All about her are her grandparents, her uncles and aunts, her mother, holding Jacques by the hand, and even Marcel, who has somehow or other escaped from his African hell and is in rude health: the only one missing is himself and his absence is so natural that nobody notices it. Perhaps he is still in Algeria, perhaps in a room next door, detained there in perpetuity by his guilt. His morbid fantasies have become a matter of habit, they no longer genuinely distress him, even though he cannot help indulging in them.

  (My God, my God, what a tragedy …)

  He opens the letters and glances through them one after the other.

  “André, my child, my dearest, Claudie and Jacques have been particularly tiresome today, they really need …”

  “My dear son, your father’s health, which until now …”

  “… and this time I’m having these frightful attacks of diarrhoea that give me no respite and exhaust me terribly …”

  What is the point of all this news? In what way does it still concern him? What can he do about it? He would prefer to receive no more letters. Nor to write any more. He would like to be taken back to the spring of 1955 at the hotel in Piana. His clothes still hung loosely about him, his stomach gave him pain every time he ate food that was a little too rich, but the sky was so bright. Claudie had twisted her ankle running on the beach and he had gently massaged her foot as she watched him, making little grimaces of pain from time to time to which he responded with self-pitying exclamations that made her burst out laughing.

  “… and we send you all our love …”

  “… André, you are so dear to us …”

  At Piana his heart was not empty. He was not ashamed of himself.

  “… and maggots in my eyes, live maggots, flowing like tears.”

  *

  A little Arab boy of about ten is sitting on a bench in the corridor. A soldier squatting in front of him is doing conjuring tricks for him. A five-franc piece disappears from his hand, to reappear in his mouth or behind the ear of the child, whose eyes open wide.

  “Who is this lad?” Capitaine Degorce asks.

  “He’s the son of a suspect, mon capitaine.”

  Moreau emerges from the interrogation room and takes the capitaine aside a little.

  “The one I picked up this morning, mon capitaine, he talked. Solid stuff, I think.”

  “He’s talked? Already?”

  “Yes, mon capitaine, but it wasn’t all that difficult, you know. He’s a hefty fellow, very moody. So I got them to bring out the generator, the electrodes, the whole kit, under his nose. I asked one of the lads to connect up to see if it was all working. They brought a bucket of water and sponges and I explained to the fellow that in my opinion, tough guy as he was, there would be no point in our getting rough with him. I said I was sure he was brave and wouldn’t talk, well, you get my meaning. Then I said, as we didn’t like wasting time, I’d also brought in his youngest son and we were going to watch together to see how the kid would stand up to the shock treatment. And they brought him into the room. I just had time to say, we’re going to take off your shirt and trousers, young man, like on the beach, we’re going to show your Dad a trick, and the guy said he’d talk. And straight off, he began to spill the beans, no problem. We almost had to shut him up! A piece of cake, mon capitaine.”

  “Well, there you are, Moreau,” says the capitaine. “You’re becoming an ace psychologist, aren’t you? And what then?”

  “He gave us a name, mon capitaine. A guy who works
at the port. A trade unionist. A storeman, I think. Or an accountant. A commie. A Frenchman, mon capitaine.”

  “They’re all Frenchmen, Moreau.”

  “Yes, mon capitaine. You know what I mean.”

  “Yes, Moreau. I know what you mean. Good. You go and fetch him for me. And when he’s here, call me.”

  “At once, mon capitaine.”

  In the corridor the little boy gets up and starts running. His father has just emerged from the interrogation room between two harkis. He is a man of forty-five, tall and wiry. His frizzy hair is almost entirely grey. He bends down to pick up the child in his arms. He hugs him to himself with all his might and throws Capitaine Degorce a long look, filled with gratitude and despair. His eyes are moist, almost tearful, like those of an old man. His lips tremble.

  (There’s no harm in this. It’s how things ought to go all the time.)

  “I’ll come with you as far as the car, Moreau. I’ve not been out at all today. I need a breath of air.”

  The sun is shining and it is very hot now. The sky is still an indeterminate, ugly colour, a pale milky blue that reminds Capitaine Degorce of the devout pictures on the backs of which his mother used to write greetings for his birthday or the new year: the child Jesus would be depicted there, pale and podgy, in a pose of vague solemnity, on his mother’s knee, or the martyrdom of obscure saints, being lashed, cut up or boiled alive, their mouths open to emit cries that looked like moans of ecstasy, while in the background angels sounded trumpets in the same pasteboard sky. Capitaine Degorce has never told his mother how embarrassing he found these naive depictions, how little they matched the nature of his faith. He could not help detecting in them something stale and corrupted which he now perceives in the perverseness of the Algerian sky. To the south huge yellow and dark brown clouds are gathering on the horizon. Capitaine Degorce’s skin is damp. He goes indoors to wash his hands and rinse his face with cold water. He wants to go back and see Tahar, to sit down facing him in the reassuringly dim light of the cell. He returns to his office where the morning papers have been left. Tahar is on the front page, beneath unanimously triumphant headlines. Capitaine Degorce lacks the courage to read the reports, all that clotted, sterile prose. He fiddles vaguely with his letters again and glances up at the top of the organization chart. The photograph of Tahar ought to be marked with a red cross, but he does not want to do it. A foolish superstition. He will be decorated or promoted for having arrested him, that is certain, and the notion is suddenly intolerable to him.

  (Time will pass, thank God.)

  Time will pass. He will leave El-Biar. He will leave Algeria. He will return to Piana for another holiday and rediscover pure air again, rediscover the joy of speaking spontaneously, once he has embraced his wife, kissed his children’s brows, they will come to life once again and rediscover their places in his heart.

  (But how will I be able to embrace them?)

  He gets up and marks the red cross. Soon the organization chart will be completely covered in red crosses and he will be a commandant. He thinks about this with indifference now. The future is just as unreal as the world that surrounds him. In the photograph on the organization chart Tahar looks sad and resigned. On the front pages of the newspapers all this sadness has disappeared. He smiles politely, as if the photographers thronging around him were worthy of his consideration and courtesy. At his side the colonel is smiling too, a ghastly complacent smile: for all the world as if the two of them were about to go out to dinner together. And Capitaine Degorce suddenly realizes that it is these photos that have saved Tahar’s life. The previous day the colonel had been unable to resist his impulse to summon the press so he could strut before them like a peacock, he arranged this on his own initiative with no thought of anything other than satisfying his own vanity and this initiative has not found favour in high places because now that Tahar has been in the limelight he can no longer disappear.

  (Thank goodness for that idiot.)

  The generals must have been livid, including Salan himself, and doubtless the resident minister, they must have rung Paris and ordered the colonel to find a solution, but there is no solution, it is too late and the colonel is reduced to simmering in his own helplessness, regretting that things had not turned out differently. Capitaine Degorce can hear his exasperated voice on the telephone, he remembers his repellent insinuations and feels humiliated that he should be supposed capable of carrying out such foul tasks without turning a hair, as if he were a hitman, a performer of dirty jobs and not a French officer, and rage overwhelms him to the point that he almost telephones the colonel to hurl abuse at him.

  (What have you made of me, my God, what have you made of me?)

  But nothing lasts. His most powerful emotions cannot sustain their intensity for long, they become pallid and tepid and are all blended together into a vague feeling of desperate weariness that does not leave him. Everything is false and hollow. How could he have failed to understand at once what the colonel meant? Who’s the idiot now? There must be icy, reptilian blood flowing in his veins. His thoughts are slow, bogged down, constantly faltering. They no longer interest him.

  (What have you made of me, my God, what have you made of me?)

  And the voice says “my God” well enough, but he does not know to whom this question is addressed.

  *

  Robert Clément. Twenty-four. Accountant in a shipping company. Came to Algeria in 1954. A slightly built young man with a patchy moustache that makes his face look even more youthful. He sits on the chair with his back very straight and stares at Capitaine Degorce and Adjudant-chef Moreau with open disdain. His shirt is soaked in sweat under the arms.

  (The big moment in his life.)

  There is a protracted silence and when Capitaine Degorce considers it has lasted long enough he asks cheerfully: “So, are you a communist?”

  “That’s no concern of yours,” the young man replies, “but yes, I’m a communist. Is that a crime now?”

  “Oh no, not at all!” the capitaine exclaims, smiling and adds with conviction, leaning towards Clément: “I’ve nothing against communists, you know. Nothing at all. Indeed quite the contrary. I owe my life to a communist, just imagine. It’s true! If you stay with us for long enough I may have the chance to tell you all about it. Raymond Blumers. Does that mean anything to you? In the Resistance.”

  (Truth. Lies.)

  Clément shakes his head. “No.”

  “No?” Capitaine Degorce repeats sadly.

  “No. And I couldn’t care less about it.”

  “Mon capitaine,” suggests Adjudant-chef Moreau. “Maybe if I tickled him in the chops a couple of times it would improve the comrade’s manners.”

  “No, Moreau, no,” says the capitaine. “Monsieur Clément is vexed and I expect he has reasons for this. We can make the effort to understand his little emotional fluctuations. Because he knows very well that being a communist is not a crime. But assisting the rebellion is a different matter. That’s more than a crime. It’s treason. What do you think about that, Monsieur Clément? Do you think ‘treason’ is the right word or can you perhaps convince us that it’s an exaggeration?”

  “I’ve betrayed no-one,” says Clément. “And you have no right to detain me for my ideas. I demand that you release me.”

  Moreau gives a loud guffaw. Capitaine Degorce adopts a contrite expression.

  “I’m afraid you don’t understand the situation. There is no right. There is only you, locked up here with us. For as long as we deem necessary. Or for as long as I choose. I could keep you here until the Last Judgement – oh, excuse me – until the Revolution comes, you see, I’m flexible. We don’t have to account to anyone. And for as long as you don’t talk, believe me, you won’t leave here.”

  The capitaine turns to Moreau.

  “We’ll give our young friend some time to think about all that.”

  The adjudant-chef touches Clément’s moustache and pulls a face.

  “S
o that’s your way of going into mourning for Comrade Stalin, is it? Well it makes you look like an idiot, my lad. You look like a right idiot.”

  “Just leave him to stew for a bit,” says Capitaine Degorce, once the door is closed. “And then you can come back and turn up the heat. But don’t lay a finger on him. Scare the living daylights out of him. But don’t lay a finger on him. I don’t want him to be able to say anything at all about us when he gets out of here. Understood, Moreau?”

  “Yes, mon capitaine.”

  *

  “I’m getting a meal brought to us. I’ve had nothing to eat all day.”

  Tahar is still in his socks. His shoes have been placed in a corner, slippers of plaited leather. Capitaine Degorce gives them a quick satisfied glance before plunging into gloom as he recognizes in this the tangible and ludicrous symbol of his own power. He has the power to make a pair of shoes appear or disappear, to decide who shall remain naked and for how long, he can give orders for day and night to be excluded from the cells, he is the master of water and fire, the master torturer, he controls a vast, complicated machine, full of tubes, electric wires, buzzing sounds and flesh, a machine which is almost alive. He supplies it constantly with the organic fuel its insatiable greed demands. He makes it function, but it rules his existence and against it he can do nothing. He has always despised power, the immeasurable powerlessness its exercise conceals, and he has never felt so powerless. A soldier brings two plates and Tahar eats heartily.